Campbell-Brown wins Beijing gold

BY ANDRES FOCIL

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Former Arkansas Razorback Veronica Campbell-Brown won her fifth Olympic medal on Thursday at the 2008 Games in Beijing, China.

NBC and its affiliates will broadcast portions of today’s track and field events throughout the day on Thursday.

Campbell-Brown, running in the 200-meter final, won the gold medal with a personal-best time of 21.74. Her new medal is the fifth in her collection. She also won two golds (200 meters and 4×100-meter relay) and a bronze (100 meters) in Athens and a silver (4×100-meter relay) in Sydney.

Campbell-Brown became only the second woman is history to successfully defend the Olympic 200-meter title. Her clocking, 21.74, is eighth on the all-time list.

Also on Thursday, Campbell-Brown anchored Jamaica’s 4×100-meter relay to a heat win the in prelims. The Jamaican quartet clocked a time of 42.24 to advance to Friday’s final.

Christin Wurth-Thomas ran the opening round of the 1,500 meters on Thursday. Clocking a time of 4:09.70, she finished eighth in her heat and did not advance to the semifinals.

"We haven’t done too much for a while," Wurth-Thomas said. "(The goal is) to come out there and get on top. I felt tired today, but there’s no explanation for it. I needed to charge more. I feel stale. We went into hibernation for about 20 days."

Disaster struck Team USA again on Thursday when the 4×100-meter relay did not advance to the event finals. Led off by Rodney Martin, then handed to Travis Padgett and Darvis Patton, Patton was unable to successfully complete the hand off to Tyson Gay.

"I don’t know (what happened)," Gay said of the missed exchange. "The stick was in my hand. I felt it hit my hand. We had some good handoffs in practice, so everything was going well. It was probably my fault. Some people say that when it hits the hand, you should have it. I’m a veteran. I’ve ran the relays, I’ve never dropped a baton in my life."

Things were going smoothly for the United States through the first two legs. But when Patton closed in on Gay and Gay reached backward, they couldn’t connect. Patton made a final lunge to get the stick to Gay before he ran out of the passing zone, but as Gay’s hand closed, the stick wasn’t in it. Gay said he felt the baton.

"Then I went to grab it and there was nothing," Gay said. "It’s kind of the way it’s been happening to me this Olympics."

The men’s relay team failed to reach the Olympic final for the first time since 1912.

For complete results of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, visit www.iaaf.org. For up-to-date information about the Razorbacks in Beijing, visit ArkansasRazorbacks.com.